Mrs. Melon’s class was out of control most of the time. Students came, students went. Everyone seemed to feel adequately developed as a child, so they used the class as a free-zone study hall. Most students simply brought in all their work from other classes and saved their evenings by doing it during Mrs. Melon’s lectures.
This would be the third consecutive year that Stacy Hamilton would be taking a sex-ed class. She felt she had seen most of the films, looked at all the cutaway diagrams; she knew what went on. But even Stacy couldn’t deny that it was valuable to run through sex-ed one more time. There were always some kids getting it for the first time, and they were always entertaining to watch.
There had been a guy in the seventh grade whose mother told him women had teeth in their vagina. The boy must have believed it. He stood up in sex-ed class one day—Stacy was there—and asked, “Do very many men get their penises cut off?”
The kid quickly got himself the nickname Jaws, and, didn’t come back to Paul Revere Junior High the next year. Someone called his home and was referred to a number in Alabama.
Stacy herself had learned about sex from her mother, in a supermarket, in the feminine-hygiene section. “There is a certain thing that adults do after they are married,” Mrs. H. told her. “The purpose is to have children.” She went on to explain the sexual process in such cold clinical terms that Stacy’s first question was, “Does a doctor perform the operation?”
“No,” said Mrs. H., “your father and I did it ourselves.” In the years that followed, Mrs. Hamilton never mentioned the subject again. Not even a word. Stacy’s mother seemed to consider sex an unmentionable obligation performed in unspeakable situations. Sometimes she’d say something like, “You watch out for boys with beer breath; you know what they want.” And that was it. So Stacy was grateful for sex-ed, even if it was old territory.
As Mrs. Melon droned on this afternoon, three weeks into the school year, Stacy decided the time was right to open the note from Linda Barrett that she had been saving since period break.
Stacy carefully unfolded the notebook page:
DEAR STACY,
HI STACE. HOW IS EVERYTHING GOING? WHAT’S NEW? ISN’T MY WRITING JUST WONDERFUL? ALL I HAVE IS THIS EYE-LINER PENCIL THAT I NEVER USE. (She switches here to a pen) SO HI! I HAVE REALLY GOT TO TALK WITH YOU. ABOUT SOME SERIOUS STUFF. STACY, I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT THE VET ACTUALLY CALLED YOUR HOUSE AND TALKED TO YOUR MOM!!! HOW DID YOU FEEL WHEN EVELYN GAVE YOU THE MESSAGE? PRETTY WEIRD, HUH? FIRST HE SENDS FLOWERS, THEN HE STARTS CALLING YOU UP. THIS GUY SOUNDS DANGEROUS. WE HAVE GOT TO TALK. WRITE ME AND TELL ME HOW MUCH YOU LIKE THIS GUY.
I WISH YOU WEREN’T WORKING EVERY SATURDAY! I WAS THINKING THAT IT WOULD BE NICE IF WE GOT TOGETHER THIS SATURDAY, BUT I GUESS WE CAN’T. UMMMMMM . . . I GOTTA GO NOW. I’LL SEE YOU IN ABOUT 52 MINUTES. I HAVE TO REWRITE AN ESSAY NOW! BYE STACE! WRITE ME!
YOUR BUD, LINDA
Stacy withdrew a clean sheet of paper from her Pee-Chee folder. She wrote:
OH LINDA OH LINDA OH LINDA,
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO. MOM IS OKAY. I NEVER KNEW I COULD THINK OF SOMETHING SO FAST. SHE GOES, “WHO IS THIS RON JOHNSON THAT CALLED YOU? HE SOUNDS LIKE A MAN!” I’M NEARLY SHITTING, RIGHT, BUT I GO, “HE’S JUST THIS GUY FROM SCHOOL WHO WANTS A JOB AT SWENSON’S.” SO THEN I ASK HER WHAT SHE TOLD HIM, AND EVELYN GOES, “I TOLD HIM THAT YOU HADN’T GOTTEN HOME FROM RIDGEMONT YET.” WHAT DO YOU THINK THE VET THINKS????? I TOLD HIM ONCE I WAS GOING TO JUNIOR COLLEGE. AND THAT I WAS 19. HE’S PROBABLY SO MAD AT ME! I LIKE HIM. I FEEL KIND OF SECURE WITH HIM. I THINK WE SHOULD GO OUT SOME MORE! BUT I SHOULD TELL HIM THE TRUTH ABOUT HOW OLD I AM. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
YOUR BUD, STACY
About ten minutes before the end of Child Development, while Mrs. Melon was working her way around the room with enchilada recipes, Stacy noticed the class disrupted by the appearance of a buxom young office worker in a tight red dress.
She had come to give Mrs. Melon a mimeographed office memo, but the simple act became a much larger production in the hands of this girl. She swung through the doorway and scanned the room with two mighty whips of her head. She took a long while to separate the top sheet from her stack of other mimeographs pausing once to shake out her hair. Then she swung back out again. Somebody applauded.
The bell rang, and Stacy found Linda Barrett on her way to the next class.
“Here,” said Stacy, handing her the note. “Write me back next period.”
The next period, Stacy received this reply from Linda:
STACE,
DON’T YOU DARE TELL HIM THE TRUTH. YOU’LL NEVER HEAR FROM THE GUY AGAIN. JUST TELL HIM THAT YOU HAVE A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO USE THE PHONE, AND UNTIL YOU GET YOUR OWN LINE PUT IN, YOU’LL CALL HIM! OKAY? SEE YOU AT LUNCH.
LINDA
Stacy thought about it all through her next period, and debated the subject further with Linda Barrett over lunch. She had to tell The Vet her true age, she said. She didn’t want to have to keep thinking up and hiding more lies.
“You don’t have to lie,” said Linda. “Just don’t talk about your age at all.”
“But I already told him I was nineteen! I told him I was already out of high school! I totally lied!”
“Now it bothers you to lie,” said Linda. “But it didn’t bother you to sneak out your window at night.”
“That’s different.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is.”
And so it went. By the end of the school day, Stacy’s mind was made up. She was going to tell The Vet how old she was, and she was going to do it in a grownup way. He would understand; and if he didn’t, forget him! Right? After school Stacy took the H bus to Town Center Mall and picked out a card at the Hallmark Store.
She selected a middle-of-the-road cartoon card, nothing too wild. The face was a drawing of an intent astronomer, his telescope trained on the heavens. It said: “Don’t dwell on all the mistakes of the past. Look to the future.”
The card opened up to another drawing of the same astronomer, who had just realized the lens cap was still on his telescope: “And all the mistakes you can make, then.”
Stacy decided to wait a day before she wrote The Vet anything on the inside of the card. Mrs. Melon was still preparing the class for sex-ed, rubbing her forearms, while Stacy worked out the phrasing in Child Development the next day.
Dear Ron:
Thanks a lot for the flowers. I got the message that you called. I’m sorry I didn’t call you back yet. I admit I have been pretty quiet, but I have to admit a few things, like I am only 15! But that’s the only lie I told you! I hope we can still be friends! Good luck at the clinic, and I hope we can talk very soon.
Love, Stacy
After school, Stacy walked to the nearby mailbox and dropped her Hallmark card into the slot. Days, then weeks passed. She heard nothing from The Vet. He didn’t call, didn’t write, didn’t come into Swenson’s.
“Stacy,” said Linda Barrett one late night on the telephone, “it doesn’t look good for the relationship.”
The Lear Jet Is Waiting
Two days had passed and The Rat awoke, bathed in The Attitude. Today was the day. He knew it.
The first three periods of the day flew by. By now he was getting to know Stacy Hamilton’s whole schedule. The last bell rang, and The Rat strode out the door of Spanish class, down the halls to the A.S.B. office.
And there she was. Except she was talking with five other guys. They were all standing around, leaning over the counter, smiling at her. The Rat took it in stride. He was all form. He took a swig from the nearby drinking fountain, very casual. They were still talking to her. She was smiling back.
Then it hit The Rat. What if a lot of guys asked her out? What if muscle-bound jocks hit on her all day long. Worse yet, what if she went out with Mike Brock? Maybe The Rat wasn’t even good-looking enough to try.
He felt the cold fear of rejection spread through him. It sank The Attitude like a harpooned beach t
oy. The Rat turned and walked to his next class.
Later that week The Rat and Damone went to the first school dance of the year.
“Have you seen Stacy here yet?”
“I don’t think she’s coming,” said The Rat. He kicked at the sawdust that was covering the gymnasium floor. “She’s probably not the type who goes to dances.”
The Rat had combed his hair into submission. Damone was carefully arranged so that he appeared ultracasual—tennis shoes and sweater. He leaned against the side of the bleachers, listening to the cheesy high school band performing their version of “Take It to the Limit.”
A beautiful young Ridgemont girl walked by them. The Rat acted like he had been punched in the stomach. “Did you see that girl? Jesus.”
“You are such a wussy with girls,” said Damone. “Come on. They’re just . . . girls.”
“Yeah? You ought to hear my sister and her girlfriends talk sometime. You’d never call one a girl again. They talk like truck drivers.”
Damone rolled his eyes and ignored the remark.
“That girl was so cute. Look at her over there!”
“Where?” said Damone.
“Over there by the metal chairs.”
“Well do something about it,” said Damone.
“Like what?”
“Just what I said, do something about it. You think she’s cute? Do something about it.” Pause. “You wussy.”
The Rat stared at Damone. His eyes glazed over with a sense of purpose.
“Don’t let them fool you,” said Damone. “They come here for the same reason we do.”
The Rat draped his fatigue jacket over his shoulder like a French film director. He began to swagger toward the girl.
“Rat,” said Damone. “Ace the coat, okay?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Give it to me.” Damone took it. “Now you look okay.”
The Rat walked straight over and sat down heavily on a metal chair two feet away from the girl. She was watching the band.
“YOU,” said The Rat. The girl turned around. “Sit.” The Rat tapped the aluminum chair next to him with the palm of his hand. The Attitude.
The girl shivered as if the night air had given her a bad chill. She scurried over to some friends at the other end of the gymnasium.
Damone came over and sat in the chair. “It’s a start,” he said.
By Monday morning The Rat had a plan. Not another day was going to slip by without his meeting Stacy Hamilton. He sat grimly through all his classes, preparing for the attack. Then came fifth period, her A.S.B. period on Mondays. The Rat headed down to the A.S.B. counter.
She was all alone. Doing nothing.
“Hi,” said Ratner.
“Hello.”
“Listen,” he said. “I have two question. I was curious . . .” He felt the beginnings of the same old cold panic, but barged through with his rap anyway. “What do you do with the old combination locks around here? I left mine on before we switched lockers . . .”
“We cut them off,” said Stacy.
“So they’re gone.”
“Well, no,” she said. She reached under the counter and pulled out a bucketful of old locks. “They’re here.”
“I’ll never find it in there.”
“Some people do.”
“It’s cool,” said The Rat. “It’d take too much time.” He chuckled to himself, like he had too much Attitude to be bothered with such small-time stuff as locks. He affected a look that said: The Lear Jet Is Waiting.
“Well, okay,” she said. She returned the bucketful of locks under the counter.
“My second question,” said The Rat, “is . . . what’s your name?”
She smiled. “Stacy.”
“Hi. I’m Mark.” He stuck his hand through the glass hole in the window. “Nice to meet you, Stacy.”
Spirit Bunnies
By the second month of the school year, Stacy Hamilton’s favorite class was Beginning Journalism/School Newspaper. Not only was it her one class with Linda Barrett, but the atmosphere was always pleasantly chaotic. Time passed more quickly in this class than in any others on her sophomore schedule.
Today was assignment meeting day, and things usually got out of hand.
“I want to write about the rock group Van Halen,” announced William Desmond, the wrestler-sports columnist. “I went to see them at the sports arena last Friday and they were disgusting.”
“My ass,” said Randy Eddo, campus ticket scalper and “advertiser” in the school newspaper. “They were tremendous.”
Desmond turned and addressed Eddo. “Oh yeah? You like it when David Lee Roth sticks the microphone between his legs, don’t you?”
“No, you like it,” said Eddo. “That’s why you remember it.”
“There’s too much rock in the newspaper as it is,” interrupted Reader editor Angie Parisi. “Why doesn’t anyone want to write about the foreign exchange students?”
Silence.
“All right, I’m just going to have to assign it.” She looked around the room and settled her gaze on a curly haired young student sitting next to Stacy. “Why don’t you?”
“Okay.”
“What’s your name?”
“Louis Crowley,” he said, tugging at the blue down vest that was his trademark.
“Okay, I want you to interview the three students from India here this semester . . .”
The class’s attention was diverted by the appearance of two cheerleaders at the door.
“Oh, class,” said Mrs. Sheehan, the journalism teacher, from her back-of-the-room seat. “Dina Phillips and Cindy Carr wish to talk with us for just a few moments. Come on in, girls.”
Head cheerleader Dina Phillips stepped forward to address the journalism class. At age seventeen, she was the best dresser in Ridgemont. She wore an expensive skirt-and-blouse ensemble that day. Her smile was a quintessential sosh production—the glimmer in the eyes, then the slight crinkle at the corners of her mouth, moving into the traditional broad teeth-baring smile. Even Cindy Carr stood back in silent deference as Dina spoke.
“I just want to say,” said Dina, “that we are not Spirit Bunnies. Last year, all your articles in the school newspaper referred to us as Spirit Bunnies, and everybody started calling us that, and we just want to say that we’ve gotten the name changed this year to Commissioners of Spirit. We always hated the name Spirit Bunnies. It bugged the heck out of Cindy and myself.”
“It’s just such a put-down,” said Cindy Carr.
“They don’t call the Chess Club Checker Champs or something goofy like that,” continued Dina Phillips. “We just want to be known as Varsity Commissioners of Spirit. We’re going to go to everything this year, you guys. We’re going to go to soccer, wrestling, and basketball. Not just football.”
“We’re going to do a lot of new and different things this year for spirit,” said Cindy Carr. “Like, for instance, we’re bringing back the Pep Club.” She started to say something else, but Dina broke in.
“It takes a lot of guts to get up and do something that a lot of people will make fun of,” she said. “Cheerleaders aren’t some elite special little group in the clouds. We’re not out to be better than the crowd. We just want the crowd to participate, and we want spirit from every little person in this entire school. We need your support.”
There was no reaction, and the moment hung heavy in the air.
“Well, thank you, girls,” said Mrs. Sheehan.
The former Spirit Bunnies were just about to leave journalism class when someone else appeared at the door. It was Vice-Principal Ray Connors, with a slip in his hand. He was grave and to the point. He didn’t even ask Mrs. Sheehan if he could interrupt her class.
“May I speak with Louis Crowley, please?”
Crowley rose to his feet, unsure of what was about to transpire. It was an eerie sight. “Madman” Connors wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulder and walked him out of the class. By the next peri
od, word had rocketed around campus. There had been an accident out on El Dorado Bridge. Two cars had been morning-racing across the structure, and one edged a third car out of the way. The third car had slammed up against the railing, caught its wheel on a turret, and had flown over the side and into the water below. The car had contained the father and sister of Louis Crowley.
Highway To Hell
The mood was somber around journalism class. Death—the idea of mortality—had struck close to home. Suddenly everyone was a close friend of Louis Crowley, had been talking to him just that morning. The word was he would be out of school for two to three weeks.
But two days later, there was Louis, back in journalism. Back at school. Blue down vest and all. It was amazing, and it was mystifying. A couple of students said something to Louis about how sorry they were, and Louis just kind of put his head down and nodded thanks. It was the quietest journalism class had been all year.
Then Jeff Spicoli showed up.
Spicoli bolted into journalism class holding the front page of the local newspaper. An amateur photographer had been loading his film, shooting pictures of the bridge, when he heard the crash, snapped his shutter a few more times, and caught a color photo of the Crowley car sailing off the El Dorado Bridge and into the ocean. The local paper had paid the photographer $500 for the shots and published the series on the front page in fire-blazing color.
“Look at these bitchin’ photos of the crash,” boomed Jeff Spicoli. “You can see the people inside and everything.”
Everyone froze. No one spoke. Louis Crowley hung his head and began to sob. It would be another month before anyone spoke to Jeff Spicoli again.
To Spicoli, that rejection was just typical of high school kids. They were so serious, so hung up on their social status. The whole routine reminded Jeff Spicoli of a long climbing rope. All these soshes had been shimmying up that rope since grade school, and by the time they got to high school they were holding on for dear life. They wanted to be popular, at all costs, and maybe they would get voted Most Likely to Never Have to Shit in the annual. They were just dying to get to the top of that rope. Most of Spicoli’s friends were still the junior high schoolers from Paul Revere. They knew how to have a good time.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High Page 7